Concept of Significance Index for Maintenance and Design of Pipe Networks

Water-supply engineers often face the task of designing new pipe networks at a low cost, or of rehabilitating the existing networks. In this technical note, a simple optimality criterion called the significance index is defined. This index can be effectively used for the rehabilitation of existing networks. This index can also be slightly modified for use in the optimal design of new networks. The utility of this index for the rehabilitation of networks is demonstrated by its application to an existing network. The use of this index in the optimization of networks is illustrated by the application to an example network. The effectiveness and limitations of these indices are presented in here.